Laguna Beach - Early November
[Editor's Note: It's unclear how things played out between Bobby and his father, but it seems likely that they reconciled given that this letter is again addressed "Dear Family." This letter was found in a same envelope as the one after it; whether they were mailed together or simply stored together later, I don't know.]
Dear Family,
Happy November! The weather has taken a turn for the better and I have been swimming for the past three days.
Other than that I have been leading an extremely dull & stagnant life. I am bored to death but unable to get the initiative to change any situation. Life is very easy in California. I am lacking no material thing, but it is hypnotic, also. I notice not only in myself but in others around here, a kind of lethargic daze that is contagious.
All is not lost, though. I have taken a slight interest in the Visual arts. I spent about a week making [a] 5' x 2' collage which now hangs on the wall of my room. I also made a small mobile & semi-functional curtains.
As you might have guessed, there is a great amount of drug usage here, and even though it is not my obsession, I am loaded on grass or hash quite a bit of the time. Perhaps due to the great amount of space being dedicated to it in the national newsweeklies you have learned that it is not so much a euphoria producing drug but an awareness producing sacrament.
To this you might say, "Hogwash!" but it is in this manner that I take it and until, if you do, try it, which I hope you might, you will never understand how this is possible.
The idea that I am hung up on it, thought, is a farce because I can go for days or however long you with without feeling anxiety from want of it, I have not smoked all day today.
I don't know why I chose to write to you about marijuana, but that's just the way the letter came out.
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Love & Peace,
Bobby.
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